


and lead us not into temptation

by l_cloudy



Series: The Prisoner [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Identity Porn, M/M, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Roleplay, S&M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-06-07 09:50:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6799030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/l_cloudy/pseuds/l_cloudy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hux looks him up and down, this Resistance golden boy, gangly and ungraceful and so appallingly soft. Takes a drag of his cigarette. “You’re weak,” he says.</p><p>Solo looks up at him. “Please.” He draws in a long, broken breath. “<em>Please</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>  <em>Or: General Hux thinks about Ben Solo a lot more than he probably should.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	and lead us not into temptation

**Author's Note:**

> Fic revamped a little in April 2018.

General Hux wonders about Ben Solo a lot more than he probably should.

++

Hux’s lips are pursed as he surveys the man in front of him – no more than a boy, truly, young as he looks handcuffed to that table. His long dark fringes hang limply above his eyes, face pale and glistening with perspiration, one eye twitching under the low yellow lights of the interrogation room. He looks like something Hux could easily crush under the heel of his boot.

It’s going to be a pleasure to watch him break.

“Well, boy,” he calls out from the door, making Solo jump. “Are you ready to talk?”

He walks up to the interrogation table at an unhurried pace, taking notice of how the boy recoils as Hux passes him by, the way his cuffed hands tighten into fists.

“I’m not going to tell you anything,” Solo replies, defiant, proud. He sounds straight out of an holodrama, Hux thinks, and he laughs.

This is his cue, Hux supposes, the bit where he’s supposed to tell his prisoner how everyone talks, eventually – and they always do, in his experience; Ren is an excellent interrogator when he deigns to show up – glowering threateningly as he’s expected to do. He ought to look suitably imposing and dangerously affable, as the script goes for every villain worth of the title, for Hux has very little doubt regarding the part he’s being expected to play. But he doesn’t particularly share the passion for these moralistic fairytales the Resistance so fervently believes in, and so he does nothing of the sort.

He brings one hand up to Solo’s face instead, half-expecting the boy to wince and feeling intrigued when he doesn’t, barely suppressing a thrill as he realizes that perhaps Ben Solo is not as spineless as he expected.

“I don’t do this often,” Hux admits. “Interrogating prisoners. You should be flattered.” He doesn’t add that he’s granting Solo the privilege of his company because of his family name and his mother’s position within the Resistance; all of that goes unsaid.

He brushes Solo’s hair away from his forehead. The skin under his touch is very pale and very soft, that of a pampered New Republic brat who never had to struggle a day in his life.

Hux backhands the boy across his face, hard.

Solo recoils from the impact and he can’t stop the low groan that escapes his mouth, a sound that Hux suspect is more surprise than it is pain. He is going to enjoy working to correct that, can’t wait until the boy is shrinking away from his touch in fear, tears streaming down his face.

“Tell me what you know.”

Solo snorts. “Please,” he drawls. “Is that all you can do?”

He looks more cocky than he did only two minutes ago, less scared, as if he genuinely believes that mere slaps are, in fact, all that a General of the First Order can do. Perhaps he believes that the absence of a torture droid and Hux’s admittedly trim physique mean that the next hour is going to be easy for him; and Hux wants to laugh at his foolishness, his naivety, that insufferable New Republic arrogance.

He knows how to hit a man where it hurts.

“Agents of your so-called Resistance have been caught committing acts of sabotage well within Order territory–”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Solo jumps in and, oh, does Hux hate being interrupted. He stands up with enough sprint behind his movements that his chair falls to the floor with a clatter, walks around the table and leans against it, his hips resting mere inches from the boy’s chained hands.

“Need I remind you that this could be grounds for declaring war?” he asks. “I’d assume it would be in your best interests to cooperate.” Hux shrugs. “I may even decide to let you go.”

“I’ll take my chances,” the boy says, seemingly more confident by the minute. “But thank you.”

Solo has been stripped of his clothes after his capture, and he’s now wearing the standard prisoner attire of loose grey slacks, a long-sleeved tunic, and thread shoes that wouldn’t let him get far should he escape. The boy is very tall, Hux grudgingly admits, taller than himself, and there’s a good couple inches of pale leg between the hem of his trousers and the restraints tying his ankles to the chair.

Slowly, deliberately, Hux raises a booted foot, and kicks Solo sharply in the shin.

The boy yelps, and Hux can’t deny how satisfying that feels. The New Republic’s best and brightest crying out in pain for something he has done, whimpering in front of the might of the Order.

It’s inebriating.

“Let me know when you’re ready to talk,” Hux says, and he sets to work. He is methodical in all things, and beating Ben Solo is no exception. He kicks the boy’s chair to the floor, so that he’s still tied to its legs, awkwardly bent over and restrained at both extremities, weight resting on his shoulders and body exposed to Hux’s wrath. He lights himself a cigarette and puts it off on the inside of one elbow, once, twice. He kicks Solo in his legs and hips and chest, punches  down in the softer meat of his gut, slams his head against the table until his face bruises and his long nose is bleeding, breath coming in pants.

All through this, he asks Solo if he’s ready to talk; all through this, Solo tells him he doesn’t know a thing.

At one point, the boy starts to cry. Understandable, Hux thinks; he doubts someone as privileged as the son of Leia Organa would ever have been hurt in his precious life.

He takes pleasure in knowing he’s the first one to do so.

Hux stops then, drags Solo’s head back by the hair, takes in his tear-stained face. He hums pleasantry at the sight. “Not so arrogant anymore, are we?”

The boy’s shoulders are shaking visibly under his own weight, hands trembling in their cuffs, and Hux lays his free hand in the middle of Solo’s back to feel that shudder under his own palm; pushes down with his own weight to see him crumble, barely holding on.

“I wonder how long it’ll be before you fall to the floor on your knees,” he says, still gripping at Solo’s hair. A red flush colours that freckled face, and Hux allows himself an appreciative gaze up and down the boy’s body. “Perhaps I could enjoy that,” he suggests, and smiles at the glower Solo sends his way.

Abruptly, Hux releases his hold on those thick dark curls. “How’s the moon?”

A haughty sneer is the only answer he gets, and it’s enough to make Hux’s blood boil. He walks around Solo and kicks him again, hard enough to break the skin, knocks him back against the table with enough strength to make the boy howl when his already tender ribs slam sharply against the edge of the metal surface. He grabs the boy’s hair once again, this time to hold his face steady as his other hand curls into a fist.

His first punch hits Solo on the jaw; the second, on his bleeding nose.

The boy screams.

“Tell me,” Hux says. “And I stop.”

“I don’t know–”

His third punch smashes against a bruised cheekbone.

“ _Please_!” Solo screams. “Please. I don’t know, I don’t know, they didn’t tell me. I would tell you if I–”

He raises his hand again, and the boy flinches. Still, he holds it. “And I’m supposed to believe that?” Hux drawls. “Do you think me so stupid – your mother _leads_ the Resistance, and I am to believe you don’t know what her own men are doing?”

“I swear,” Solo says; and there’s shame on his face now, alongside the fear and the pain. “I swear,” he repeats. “I don’t know, I’m not – I’m not high up enough to know about something like this.”

“Really.” Hux smiles down at him, delighted. This is even better than he could possibly have expected, the shiny hero in front of him unmasked for the useless coward he was all along. “They didn’t tell you,” he repeats. He slides another cigarette between his lips, lights it up and inhales slowly, blows out the smoke on Solo’s face. “Your own mother didn’t tell you. Didn’t trust you. Are you this much of a failure?”

He knows he’s got it when the boy shudders all over and almost crumbles on himself, held up only by his chained wrists and Hux’s own grip on his hair, and he knows it’s no longer the tremble of fatigue – but that of defeat.

Hux looks him up and down, this Resistance golden boy, gangly and ungraceful and so appallingly soft. Takes a drag of his cigarette. “You’re weak,” he says.

Solo looks up at him. “Please.” He draws in a long, broken breath. “ _Please_.”

“You’re weak”, Hux repeats. “And you’re useless, and your own people don’t think you’re worth shit. You’re pathetic.”

“Yes,” the boy says. His eyes are downcast, tears streaming down his face. “I know, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to–”

Hux strikes him once again on the face, bruised and bleeding, drawing another short cry. “You never mean to do anything, don’t you, boy.” Solo is shaking, sniffling, those too-wide eyes darting to look at Hux and then down again, never daring to hold his gaze for too long. He looks like a scared animal caught in a trap, like something small and helpless Hux could do away with in a heartbeat, if he so wished.

“You’re useless,” Hux spits out, loud enough to drown in the sound of the boy’s pathetic whimpers. “You’re a waste of space and you deserve to destroyed.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, breath coming out in pants. “I’ll do better next time, I’m sorry, I won’t –”

“Oh, no,” Hux cuts him off. “You won’t. You can’t do any better, boy, you’re a failure now, and you’ll never be anything but.”

Solo shudders bodily, and lets out a long breath. “Yes,” he says. “I know. Thank you for showing me the way.”

And then he suddenly straightens himself up and slides out of Hux’s grip, and he doesn’t need to look to know that the cuffs have been released. Hux groans, and lets himself fall on his ass on the dull grey metal of the interrogation table, perhaps with a tad less grace than he’d usually would.

In front of him stands Kylo Ren, Masters of the Knights of Ren, looking brisk and spry and not at all like someone who just took a beating. His wide dark eyes, always rather bright, are all but sparkling now, and he’s positively humming with energy.

Despite all of that, Hux has to ask. He always asks, even if his enquiries are always met with the emotional equivalent of a transparisteel barrier.

“How are you?” Which, he’s come to learn, is a much more acceptable query than his usual _Are you alright?_ that used to gain him so many scornful glares. This time around, Ren merely snorts.

“I think you broke my nose,” Ren says, which is most definitely not an answer Hux would consider acceptable if it were coming from a subordinate. Unfortunately it’s coming from Ren, his co-commander and unrivalled pain in his ass, and he can’t do a thing about it.

“Would you like –” Hux begins, then pauses. He never quite knows how to conduct himself around Ren after these encounters. He finds it hard to look at Ren, at his limping, bruised body and think, _I did this_ , and go about his day like nothing happened. Ren, for his parts, is shockingly good at compartmentalizing, to switch from crying and begging one moment to cold and composed to the next; and Hux is sure Ren must find his own skittish attitude a source of endless amusement.

He clears his throat and tries again. “Ren,” he begins – calling out the name helps; the Supreme Leader’s apprentice, not Solo, the cowardly Resistance prisoner. “Would you like some help dressing your wounds? I brought a first-aid kit –”

“No,” Ren says. He is checking his wounds, moving his limbs gingerly, trailing two fingers lightly over his ribs. The front of his shirt is a rusty colour from all the blood that ran from his nose, and he looks like an absolute mess. Like he should be wailing in pain, not staring at Hux imperiously with amusement clear in his voice.

“Your help is not required, General,” Ren says, which is still a damn lot more polite than the words he spoke last time, in this very room, when he told Hux he had no further need of his services, knowing perfectly well the reaction he would get. It had made him flush, the way Ren had spoken to him like one would a whore, and he’d had to dig his nails into his palms to prevent himself from laying waste to Ren’s face some more. If Hux strikes Ren, and not  when he’s not Ben Solo, their arrangement is over.

The thing is, Hux wants to hit Ren all the damn time.

Last week, Hux had made a bleeding mess of his own hands and tried his best to slam the door on his way out, followed into the corridor by the mocking sound of Ren’s laugh. This time around he’s not so quick, or so angry; he’s still seated on the table, dazed, when Ren tips his chin up, not unkindly, and catches his eyes with a look that’s almost soft before asking, disdainful as always, if Hux isn’t going to be late for his shift on the bridge.

He knows when he’s being dismissed.

Hux straightens up his uniform, miraculously free of any spot of blood, and leaves.

++

Their encounters have never been tender by any stretch of the word, never completely free of all the lingering anger and spite they’ve always felt around each other. But they have never actively hurt each other either, for all that Hux can’t deny he’s thought about it more than once.

As a rule, Hux is extremely cautious of what he does, and when. He knows the value of discretion better than many, certainly more than Ren, and he makes sure to plan their rendezvous with care, days in advance, when neither of them is needed anywhere and he can be sure they won’t be seen.

He’s never fucked Ren after one of their fights, blood boiling and spirits high, until one day four months in, when one of their scheduled encounters is delayed by a sudden summon to Snoke’s holochamber, and the two of them end up squabbling and bickering like children. It’s humiliating, and it’s frustrating, and once they’re done he finds himself pushing Ren against the wall with fury he didn’t know he had, mouthing and scraping and biting at his neck, gripping his wrist hard enough to bruise all the way back to his chambers.

It doesn’t last.

Before today, Hux has never considered that the urge to hurt somebody could turn sexual, never approached these matters in anything but a perfunctory manner, just another mean to release tension. He’s not creative, or particularly forward, or prone to experimentation. But he thought, as he heard the crackling moan filtered through Ren’s mask as his back made contact with  the holochamber wall, felt him shiver under those dark robes – he thought Ren may be agreeable to a little more roughness, a little more aggression. Considering.

But the door hasn’t even closed behind them when Ren pushes him off to take off his helmet, and when Hux moves to crowd him once again he gets a good look at the way Ren’s lips curl into a sneer, feels his chest rumble with an arrogant laugh.

“Do you really think,” Ren drawls, letting his mask fall to the floor. “That you can subdue _me_ , General?”

He moves, incredibly fast, and suddenly their positions are reversed, Hux pressed against his own door with Ren closing in; and he’s never been so aware of how much bigger the other man is, how taller, as he is in this moment.

“I think not.”

Ren’s eyes are very, very dark; Hux wonders briefly if this is what Ren wants to do, to crush him and wreck his body like he’d imagined to do to Ren, to make him cry out in pain and shame and need. Hux wouldn’t be, he thinks to himself with a shiver, entirely adverse to that. Perhaps overpowering Ren may sound more satisfying, but he’s suddenly hyperaware that he can’t do that without Ren’s cooperation, while the other way around – Ren could just _take_ what he wants…

He hears a moan passing through his lips but he’s far too gone to care; he lick his lips and tilts his face up, jaw slack and mouth half-opened, he’s _ready_ –

“No,” Ren whispers, and he takes a step back, away from Hux. “I won’t do that either.”

He hates that, hates that Ren made him want and made him crave, made him ready to humiliate himself to accept something he’s never thought he may want, something Ren doesn’t seem interested to give.

Hux looks down, face burning, suddenly overly concerned with smoothing imperceptible wrinkles out of his impeccably pressed uniform shirt. “What is your game, Ren?” he asks, not looking at him. “is there something you want? Or are you just trying to pester me more than you already do?”

He hears the noise of Ren divesting himself of his robes, sees the black cowl fall to the floor, and the surcoat after it. Making a mess, as usual.

“It’s not what I want, General,” Ren says, and the words are so out of place coming out of that mouth that Hux forgets his momentary embarrassment and looks up sharply, frowning. “I can’t let you do that.”

“What are you –” 

“I’m the master of the Supreme Leader’s Knights,” Ren says, as if that explained anything. It doesn’t. “I cannot let you, a mere soldier, subjugate me.”

Hux blinks, trying to make sense of any of that and failing utterly, and they end up rolling in bed as usual, which may not be as adventurous as some of the things he’s suddenly come to imagine, but still perfectly satisfying.

He cannot get Ren’s words out of his head, though, no matter how much he tries.

Months later, he will recognize how the knight manipulated him into approaching Ren with what he wanted and making Hux feel like it was his own idea, feeling grateful when Ren accepted. He is angry, but mostly grudgingly impressed; he’s never considered Ren to be any more subtle than a ton of bricks on the head.

And so Hux may be just another instrument of Kylo Ren’s stupid urge for self-flagellation, but he doesn’t particularly mind. He is in good company at least – together with Ben Solo, that Resistance poster boy who never was, who only lives in Hux’s head and his imagination.

Who is starting to command an alarming amount of his thoughts.

++

“Would Ben Solo be force sensitive, you think?” Hux asks one afternoon, sounding more casual than he feels. He’s spent way too long pondering this, and only just now gathers the nerve to spit it out, in his relaxed, well-fucked state.

Ren’s back stiffens. The knight is sitting at the edge of Hux’s bed in only his underwear, trousers forgotten in a hand that is suddenly very still.

“Why would you even care?”

“I need the complete picture,” Hux says, making an airy  gesture with his hand that he hopes comes across as offhanded, even though Ren can’t see it. “If Leia Organa’s brother can use the Force, it stand to reason her son may, even if she herself does not.”

Ren turns then, throwing Hux an unreadable look from under his fringes, nose and jaw hidden by the curve of his shoulder. “General Hux,” he says. “Are you asking me to instruct you on the Force?”

A bark of laughter, a shake of the head, and then suddenly Ren turns away again. “Why do you even care this much about a person that doesn’t exist?”

“When I do something,” Hux says, as haughtily as he can. “I like to have all the information. Not an approach you’d use, I expect.”

Ren finally puts his trousers on and stands up, walking away from the bed to retrieve the rest of his clothes from wherever is that he threw them. They still fuck the regular way more often than not, because it is easier to find the privacy necessary to conducting a secret liaison in the officers’ quarters  than in the prison block, and because it is simpler to get off when there’s no elaborate set-up involved, but sometimes they’d try different things – sometimes Ren will play at being Ben Solo, and he does it so beautifully. 

And Hux – he does enjoy seeing his creation come to life in front of his own eyes, wants to make it as detailed and realistic as possible, until Solo is less of an act and more of a real person.

“I suppose he may be,” Ren conceded, walking back in Hux’s field of vision holding that hideous cropped shirt he usually wears under his tunic. “Force Sensitive. But he wouldn’t – he wouldn’t be very good at it.”

Of course he would not. Hux could never get a powerful Force user to submit to his will using brute force only. Ren would never accept it, even if it was just pretend.

“How comes?”

Hux has been filling out the blank spaces in Ben Solo’s character in his mind, but his knowledge of the Force is close to null. Ren scoffs. “ _Solo_ ,” he begins, spitting out the name like it was foul. “Would be trained in the Jedi ways. He would be crippled by his refusal of emotions, unable to channel them into power.”

Of course Ren would bring out the mysticism, Hux thinks. He rolls his eyes. “And I suppose you think your own emotions make you stronger?” he asks, mockingly. And oft-rehashed line of questioning, but the discussion never gets old. “Screaming at my officers? Threatening the ‘troopers?” He settles back more comfortably against the pillow. “Destroying my ship? I can certainly see how you’re good at that, at least –”

 Hux feels his bed dip and Ren is suddenly there, on hands and feet above him, purposefully not touching any part of Hux’s body but so tantalizing close he can feel heat radiating off him. “You talk too much,” Ren says, like _he_ ’s got any room to complain. But Ren’s mouth is hovering mere inches from his own, cruel and lovely, and Hux wants to bite on it, wants to take that plump lower lip between his teeth and pull on it until Ren’s breath itches, and swallow all those soft little moans and take everything he has to give.

So he does.

++

One night, in the dead of graveyard shift, Hux lets Ren guide him to a deserted cell in the bowels of the ship, and after the door shuts behind them he pushes Ben Solo to his knees and takes from him what he wants – relentlessly, mercilessly.

Ben Solo is taller than he is, of course, and broader, but he’s weak from captivity and the beatings, and it’s not long before Hux has pinned him to the ground, panting and whimpering as one sharp elbow presses on his tender ribs. The boy cannot do much in the way of fighting, but he spits in Hux’s face and bites down on the soft meat between thumb and index of his right hand, making Hux recoil with a swear. Solo twists under his legs at that, snaps back up ferociously, hands outstretched to claw at Hux’s face. He can barely react in time so that the boy’s nails end up digging into his neck instead. It burns.

He punches Solo in the sternum hard enough that the boy spasms, trying to catch his breath, and it’s quick work to push him back down with his face to the ground, to secure his arm to the restraints and kick his legs open. Solo comes back to as Hux is ripping off his clothes, and he starts screaming as he kicks and twists, trying to buck him off.

Of course, there’s nothing to be done. Ben Solo is weak, and he can do nothing but take it, cry and plead and beg as Hux works him open with two spit-slick fingers.

It doesn’t stop him in the least.

He marks Solo’s pale flesh with his teeth, hard enough to draw blood. His back is a canvas; red with fresh blood and brown of the half-healed scabs and welts he left there last week, his bruises a rainbow of purple and yellow and sickly green, and milky white underneath it all.

“If only your Resistance friends could see you like this,” Hux murmurs into Solo’s shoulder as he pushes in. They both groan, though he suspects the boy may have different reasons than he does. “What do you think they’d say?”

“Please,” Solo says and, oh, Hux loves this part. The boy begs very, very well. He traces the contour of Solo’s lips, then his nose and cheeks, and his hand comes back wet. Sweat or tears, he cannot say.

“I know what they’d say,” he tells the boy. He starts thrusting in harder, deeper, drawing out little sobs like pearls. He wants to _wreck_ him.

Hux brings one hand around Solo’s body, slips it down, not surprised to find him half-hard. He spits on his palm and starts working him, the way he always does, presses his face against Solo’s own, flushed and burning in shame. “You’re a _whore_ ,” he whispers, nibbling at his ear. “Nobody’s coming for you, boy. This is where you belong.”

When they’re done, Ren doesn’t let himself be touched. He throws on a long coat over his ripped prisoner uniform, and stalks out of the cell before Hux has time to catch his breath.

++

Hux wonders if Ben Solo prefers women or men, or none at all.

“You get fixated on the stupidest things,” Ren scoffs. In less than an hour, Hux is going to force him to his knees in one of those interrogation room and fuck his mouth, and Ren just watched him re-check schedules and make arrangements to ensure they’re not disturbed. “What do you even care? If you were fucking a real prisoner –”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Hux cuts him off, sharply. “I don’t tolerate this sort of behaviour on my ship, Ren.”

Ren turns to look at him, a wry smile on his lips. “Alright.”

He sounds surprised at his outburst, and amused, and somewhat incredulous on top of it. Hux cannot have that. “I mean it, Ren,” he says. “I wouldn’t –”

“Yes, whatever you like.” Ren makes a sweeping, dismissive gesture with one hand. “I really have better things to concern myself with than your moral character, General. Though I will keep in mind that your pathological need to imposing the will of the Order, as it were, does not extend to sexual violence outside of sordid little games.”

Hux is sure, he is completely sure, that Ren is merely trying to rile him up, to make him angry so that he will unleash all of it when they’re in the room and their encounter will be all the more satisfying for the both of them.

Hux knows this.

But he cannot stand being mocked by Kylo Ren, even when he’s perfectly aware that is all a ploy. He refuses to let himself be played like a fiddle. “Likewise,” he says, his voice cold as ice and razor-sharp. “I will try my best not to think of you as a whiny, spoiled child most of the times, even if you do play the part well, _Ben_.”

And Ren lunges at him, raw fury in his eyes, one hand grabbing at Hux’s neck and the other gripping his lightsaber, the long red blade a hair’s distance from his eye. “Call me that again,” Ren says. “And you’re dead.”

That hands tightens around his neck, shakes him, and the blade is fizzling and humming, burning so hot. Hux has never been scared of Kylo Ren, not really. Not until now.

“You’re dead, Hux. I mean it. And I’ll take my time with it.” Ren leans in close, breath brushing his ear. “Am I clear?”

He cannot speak; he can barely breathe. So he nods.

Ren releases him. “Good,” he says. “And now, I believe it’s almost time.”

Hux’s hand, busy tracing gingerly the sore spots on his neck that are surely going to bruise, freezes in midair. He frowns at Ren. “Are you… do you still want to –”

Ren nods, looking impatient. And eager. And, above all, obnoxious. “Yes,” he says, briskly. “Of c –” He catches himself before he can finish, but it has still slipped out. Hux fills that in a corner of his mind for later perusal – he’s often wondered what exactly Ren got out of this arrangement, besides physical pain to fuel his mysticism. Ren is not exactly the kind of generous lover who’d inconvenience himself for a partner’s pleasure only  and, besides, their relationship isn’t like that. It’s not even a relationship at all.

The sound of Ren clearing his throat brings him back to reality. “Well?” Ren asks. “I believe you may even enjoy this more than usual,” he says. It sounds like he’s purring. “Aren’t you angry, General?”

Hux nods, throat suddenly very dry.

“Well then,” Ren says. He turns on his back, and starts to leave.

Hux follows.

++

Sometimes, when it’s Hux and Ren in his bed, and no one else but the two of them, he finds his gaze drawn to the cuts and the wounds he himself painted all over Ren’s body, and he doesn’t know what to think. It hadn’t been Ren, then, of course. The distinction is important; _Ren_ would never let him mar his body so. Hux wants to touch, wants to trace his own artwork with his fingers, wants to know how it would _feel_ –

Ren swats his hand away.

“If you’re quite finished staring,” he says. “Perhaps we could get something done before I fall asleep.”

That is enough to shake him out of his reverie, to make him flip them over so that he’s got his knees on both sides of Ren’s hips, mouthing a trail down his chest. “Good,” Ren says, goading. “See, you’re good for something after all, you –”

Hux knows he shouldn’t let Ren manipulate him like this. He _knows_.

He cannot.

++

He creates Ben Solo on his own, or so he thinks.

Later, Hux will look back to this moment and admit to himself he is not sure how much it was his idea and how much Ren’s suggestion; but right now he’s found a way to despoil both Leia Organa and her Resistance, with the added incentive of putting Kylo Ren in his place.

Picturing it is not hard. Finding the words, however, is more difficult.

Ren bumps into him one morning when he’s on shift, tilts his head under his cowl. “I can feel you thinking, General,” he says, and even under the helmet, his voice is mocking.

Hux ignores him, walks away. Ren’s laugh follows him through the bridge, stuck in his head.

They have a meeting with the Command Staff; Ren is on time for once, but every bit as frustrating as ever. He raises one hand when Hux is done talking, lazily, like he’s a schoolchild asking for permission to speak. “Well, General,” he drawls. His voice synthesizer crackles. “That is certainly a more interesting suggestion than your usual boring fare.”

Standing in front of all of his officers, Hux can feel his face slowly turn red. He can only hope it looks like anger.

“You can’t keep doing that,” he tells Ren as soon as they’re both alone. He all but dragged him to the first empty room he could find, locking the door behind them. Everyone else must think they’re about to kill each other. “Stay the fuck out of my head, you –”

“You’re angry,” Ren says. He sounds more calm than he usually does, and unbelievably smug. There’s the familiar _hiss_ of helmet unlocking.  “Wouldn’t you like to do something about it?”

Hux is sure he must be flushing again, embarrassed as he is. “I’m not –” he spits out. “I won’t –,” he starts to stammer, then stops, disgusted at his own weakness.

Ren throw back his head and _laughs_ , eyes shining with mirth, and Hux hates him in this moment like never before.

“Oh, my dear General,” Ren says. “Always so _proper_. I can read minds, remember, I have seen many things much more depraved than your silly little fantasies.” His voice lowers; he sounds more intimate now, almost _reassuring_. “You’ve got nothing to be ashamed about,” Ren adds, not quite kind, but close, and it hits Hux then that Ren must want this, too.

He lets Ren coax it all out of him, lets him pry open his mind the way he does his body, whispers when he cannot find the words that usually come so easy to him.

“Why Ben Solo?” Ren asks, at one point.

He doesn’t understand what exactly Ren is asking, why had to he choose a real person for their little game, or why he picked this particular man. The former would get a simpler answer; Hux is thorough in all things. The second question, on the other hand…

“The age matches,” he says. “And – I wanted someone who could be a symbol, someone…”

He trails off, but Ren understands. “Someone you’d take pleasure in breaking,” he says, and Hux cannot look him in the eyes when he nods.

“I would be agreeable to that,” Ren says, and Hux almost can’t believe what he’s hearing. He will learn, one day, that Ren takes just as much pleasure, if not more, in playing the weakling – playing Ben Solo – and then reassure himself that he is not. In this moment in time he is as thankful as he is surprised.

He nods. Two days later, they start to make arrangements.

And this is how it begins.

++

There comes a week where they happen to meet thrice in as many days; Hux barely has any time but Ren insists he make some, asks him if he truly prefers a full night’s sleep to the integrity of his ship. Hux, who hasn’t had a fully night’s sleep in more than a month, agrees to meet Ren in an empty cell one day and in his own quarters the morning after.

On the third day, Ren leads him to the same cell again.

Hux doesn’t quite know what to do about it. Certainly he doesn’t fancy having to tell the Supreme Leader that his apprentice is out of commission because the commander of his flagship got overenthusiastic and beat him more often than he should. He doesn’t particularly relish the thought of having to carry a half-dead Ren to the medbay, either.

But Ren looks like he’s boiling, seething, like he is about to make something explode if Hux doesn’t distract him fast enough.

He’s going to be subtle about it, Hux decides. He lets Solo tire himself out by tying his hands only, with more leeway that he usually does, lets him try and fight Hux off him until all the fight his gone from his body. He purposefully lets himself be shaken off the boy once or twice, so they can go at it again and again until he’s had enough.

After that, Hux crouches down next to where Ben Solo is curled up in a sobbing, aching ball, trying to recover after the hit he received right above his solar plexus. He leans in close, so that his breath will brush against the boy’s skin with every word he speaks.

“ _Traitor_.”

Solo shivers, and then goes completely still. He lets out a sharp, strangled breath. “ _What_?”

“You’ve turned your back on your family,” Hux says, softly. “Haven’t you?”

His only answer is a panicked whimper, and Hux knows he’s found his weak spot. He straightens himself up, and kicks Solo roughly over his kidneys. “You’re a fucking disgrace.”

Incredible, what one could find buried in old archives. In fact, Ben Solo’s family connections were the reason Hux chose him for their little game in the first place; he’d fully expected Ren to figure it out, but perhaps he underestimated him. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Ben Solo, only son of Leia Organa and her wayward smuggler of a husband, disappeared when his father did, about five years ago, right after the truth of Organa’s parentage was made public. Quite a scandal, in certain circles. That was what had drawn Hux’s interest to Ben Solo in the first place, and he’s struggle to imagine why Ren still hasn’t figure out that he knows. It hasn’t taken Hux long to realize what the true reason must be for Ren to go along with this entire thing, why he hates Ben Solo so much, why he wants so desperately to see him degraded to the point of offer himself up for it.

Ben Solo, only grandson of Vader, who travelled down a completely different path. It must anger Ren so much, devoted to Vader as he is, that the man’s only living family completely turned his back to everything he stood for.

“You’re a disgrace,” Hux repeats, louder, this time. “To your own legacy –”

“ _Please!_ ” Solo calls – no, he _screams_ , between the sobs. “Please, stop.”

“How do you even look at your own face in the morning, you despicable little scum –” 

“Hux please, please stop, you’ve won, I can’t –”

“You traitor,” Hux says, relishing the way the boy’s face is twisting in pain and hopelessness. “You’re a fucking traitor and a disgrace, and a _disappointment_.”

“Crescent,” Solo – Kylo Ren blurts out, and Hux blinks in surprise.

He drops to his knees to the floor and sees him shaking, something akin to true terror in his eyes. “The moon’s crescent, Hux, I can’t do this anymore, you’ve got to –”

It takes Hux a split second to assess the situation; but when he does, he’s more than a little unnerved. He fucked up, he thinks, and it doesn’t matter that he doesn’t quite know what is that he did – he fucked up and now Ren is heaving, shivering on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” he tells Ren – not something he’d ever imagined he would say – and makes quick work of Ren’s restraints, sits him up with his back pressed against Hux’s chest until his breath evens out and the tears stop running through his face. Ren clears his throat then, and turns rigid and composed between Hux’s arms.

“Well,” he says, aiming for offhand and not quite managing, with his voice as hoarse from crying as it is. “I am sorry you had to see that.”

Ren tries to disentangle, to stand up and leave, but Hux only tightens the press of his arms around the knight’s shoulders. He’s not deluding himself, he knows the only reason why he managed to prevent Ren from leaving is because Ren let him, and he doesn’t know how long that will last.

“Ren…” Hux begins, then pauses, trying to find the words. He doesn’t know what to ask. “Care to explain what that was?” he asks instead, and this time there’s no stopping Ren when he decides to stand up.

“Not particularly, no.” Ren’s head is ducked low, but even in the dim light Hux can see how pink his cheeks are, the abashed curl of his mouth.

“Ren –”

“I said, I don’t want to talk about it,” Ren cuts him off. “It’s nothing to do with you anyway, so put your precious morals to rest. It’s not going to happen again anyway, unless you start… saying…”

He stops then, and Hux thinks that maybe he understands.

“Ren,” he begins, standing up and looking anywhere but at the man in front of him. He cannot quite believe he’s doing this. “I don’t think you’re a disappointment.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake –”

“I just want to say,” Hux continues, trying to get this over with as soon as he can. “You are many things, including insufferable, but a disappointment is not one of them.”

“That’s very touching, Hux,” Ren says. He’s turned around so that Hux can’t see his face, only the long expanse of his back, until he throws on a cloak hiding his body, too. “Now kindly go back to doing whatever is that you do with your time. Please.”

That’s a great deal more polite than Ren’s usual requests.

Hux figures he’ll take it. For now.

++

General Hux wonders about Ben Solo more than he probably should. If he can use the Force, and if his Light Side is as limiting as Ren assured him it is. If he prefers men or women or none at all, though it shouldn’t make a difference because rape is rape, and it doesn’t matter at all because it’s all in Hux’s head, anyway.

Still, he cannot help it.

He finds himself thinking of Ben Solo at the strangest moments – after a rare, tense holocall with his father he wonders, would Solo resent his famous mother, for being such an accomplished hero of the New Republic and leave him to trail in her shadow? He looks at a book he used to enjoy during his time at the Academy, and his thoughts turn to a young Ben Solo – was he schooled? He must have been. What were his favourite subjects, and his weakest? Was he popular with his peers?

When Ren plays at being Solo, he makes an effort to keep the personality coherent through their encounters, which Hux does appreciate. He tells himself it’s just his perfectionist tendencies talking, and it has nothing to do with the fact that there’s now a very deliberate set of mannerisms that he’s come to label ‘Ben Solo’ in his mind, and he knows the association will remain forever.

Even knowing it’s all false doesn’t change how he feels about it; there’s a tone of voice that is Ben Solo and a particular attitude that is also Ben Solo and that will never go away.

Hux has never seen any of those particular traits on Ren outside of their private time in the prisoners’ block, which he’s extremely thankful for; he wouldn’t know what to do otherwise. For his peace of mind, it is important he keeps Solo and Ren very separated in his mind. He wants Ren. He is fucking Ren. He even sort of _likes_ Ren, under very specific circumstances, mostly involving alcohol.  Ben Solo is – an eccentricity, he decides. Nothing more.

Hux wonders what Ben Solo would look like, and hates the fact that he cannot picture him in any other way but wearing Kylo Ren’s face. It shouldn’t matter, but it does.

He wonders, quite often, where Solo has run away to; if he’s even still alive. Perhaps he disappeared in the emptiness of space years ago, or he’s running a smuggling operation in the Outer Rim, or hiding in plain sight in Order territory. Or perhaps he’s truly been with the Resistance all this time, and one day they’ll meet, and –

That particular thought always makes him uneasy, and Hux drops it. Sometimes, he wonders what would have happened to Ben Solo, had Darth Vader’s grandson turned to the Dark instead of the Light. He refuses to pursue that line of thoughts as well, tells himself it doesn’t matter, that it would be so much easier for him if the real Solo were dead.

If Hux were ever to meet him, he is sure, he wouldn’t be able to look Ben Solo in the eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> On tumblr @[liesmyth](http://liesmyth.tumblr.com/); come talk to me.
> 
> ++ **ETA:** ~~within a hour and a half of posting this I got like five people asking if there's going to be a sequel, and I'll probably get talked into it if you guys keep this up, so this story is now the first in a series you can subscribe to if you'd like to read a follow-up. I'm taking suggestions, if you feel like it :)~~ [sequel's up](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7331971)!


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